July 28, 2006

Heuristic Devices

There's a lot of buzz these days about 'Fourth Generation Warfare.' Frankly, I'm a little skeptical about how useful this abstract construct may be, but I recognize that it's got a lot of people thinking and I reckon that thinking about insurgency warfare is better than not thinking about it. For a perspective from the trenches from one of the more intellectual practitioners of the art, I turned to Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC (ret.), author of The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. Colonel Hammes, now reading for his Doctorate at Oxford, was very kind to take the time and to put up with my sometimes undiplomatic questioning. Runtime here of an hour and sixteen minutes. Enjoy!